Holiday Romance

“That's where I'll be,
Since you left me,
My tears could melt the snow” - Mud, “Lonely This Christmas”

The dream ended in a dark and shabby hotel room,
Above a void of ceiling fan and grime.
It was Benidorm, 1985, back when you could still smoke
In the rooms without staff giving you grief.
I wore one of those awful floral shirts,
Like a re-purposed hula dancer’s skirt,
Giant black-frame spectacles, and tan shorts,
Every inch the graceless British tourist.

She, my stone angel, come to life beneath
The animating touch of her kindred, (so I thought),
Wore a silky white dress, spaghetti straps
Over her shoulders like sauce on a still fresh cake.
‘The traps, the traps of love!’ I wrote on a scrap of paper,
Fancying that love could make of me a poet,
‘How I have fallen in, and writhe.’ I was alive, again,
In her, and thought she was alive in me.

There was no argument, really. I saw it in her very
Eyes that, back in Manchester, where she was the daughter
Of an important man, and I was the ne’er-do-well,
Both of us eighteen, the romance blazed
Like a Benidorm sun. But now we were here, four years
Later - on the first holiday we’d managed to afford -
The sun in the sky could blaze all it liked,
Because the sun in the room was dying.

The realisation broke my heart, and I’ve been lonely
Ever since, but if I hadn’t acted then, would the pain
Be any easier? I realised before she did,
Saw in her face not only that she’d fallen out of love,
But also that she didn’t know it yet. I made us tea,
And tainted hers. Like a sleeping dove she lay,
Once one hour had passed. I put her in the mattress.
I never looked back. And I’ve been lonely, ever since.